


Watching Your World From Afar

by wolfblood



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: (will add tags as needed), Absent Parents, Angst, Canon Compliant (for now), Epilepsy, Family, Family Feels, Gen, Ghost!Laura, Ghosts, Medium!Erica, Platonic Relationships, Siblings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-06
Updated: 2012-12-06
Packaged: 2017-11-20 10:47:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/584568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfblood/pseuds/wolfblood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Laura's ghost won't move on, and Erica is the only one who can see her. The problem? Erica doesn't want to, because all she wants is to be normal. To stop being the girl who can see dead people. But life isn't fair, and things are never that easy. Not for her, and certainly not for Laura.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. When Death Comes Knocking

**Author's Note:**

  * For [capeofstorm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/capeofstorm/gifts).



There were times Laura forgot she was dead, mostly when she was a wolf and found herself lost in the forest where her uncle had taken her life. But then she would realise she couldn’t smell the earth beneath her paws, or the trees surrounding her, couldn’t even feel the wind that was making the branches sway above her. It would pull her abruptly back to reality, her sudden fear and uncertainty making her human again. She would remain huddled in the fallen leaves, trying to let the wolf take back over, because it was easier, but she never could. That was, she’d decided, the hardest part. Not being able to control it anymore. And when she’d finally move, none of the leaves would be disturbed. 

Inevitably, she always found herself coming back to that spot, the place where her blood had soaked into the soil. The first time, she’d stared down at her body, unsure whether she was dreaming or not. It was the strangest thing, to see herself like that, to watch her uncle try to hide what he’d done. But she could see it still, that rough edged quality he carried with him, like he was trying hard not to come apart completely. As if something wasn’t right, in his soul or his head or his heart, in whatever part of him had felt the need to tear her apart. Like he was mere patchwork that someone had put together hastily, a collection of broken pieces. 

The pain lingered somewhat, even though she couldn’t feel anything but the solidness of ground beneath her. It was a deep ache that started in the center of her stomach, and only occasionally did it flare into something more, into that excruciating agony that had come with the ripping of flesh and muscle and everything that had kept her held together for her entire life. A burning like fire, as if even after all these years it was waiting to consume her. But she was whole now, or at least her spirit was, without a mark or scar to show for what she’d been through. A shadow of what she’d been once.

Laura had, of course, always been taught that ghosts were real, because sometimes the wolf inside could sense them. Not necessarily see them, but sense that something _other_ was there. The way a dog might, or a cat, staring at something no one else could see. There had never been a moment in her life when she’d wondered what it might be like to become one, what it might feel like to suddenly lose everything, to wake up with the knowledge that her body would be buried, and her brother would lose another loved one. And that was what hurt the most. Not that it had been Peter, but that Derek was alone now. 

She still remembered, even so many years later, what it had felt like. The sense of panic that had thrummed through her, making her heart beat faster, the unmistakable call for help from a pack member. And not just one, but what had felt like all of them. That connection between her and her family pulling tight in desperation, and then the nothingness which had been worse. The absolute stillness that fell over her, besides her racing heart and churning stomach and shaking hands, that calm before the storm that was her becoming the Alpha. She hadn’t been prepared, because it had never been meant for her. 

It should have been Callie, in the event of their Alpha’s death. Laura’s aunt, Callie’s mother. There was a chain of inheritance, one that Laura shouldn’t have been a part of, a succession that was passed from mother to eldest daughter. And while Laura had been the only daughter, she was still the only daughter of the youngest daughter, and Callie had had two more sisters who should have come before Laura. Yet the rush of power had come all the same, the uncontrollable urge to turn right there, in her car where she still sat after dropping Derek off. 

That had made everything so much worse, so much more precise than it had been before. Because once the storm had passed, all she could feel was them dying as she clutched the steering wheel, just this side of hyperventilating. She didn’t feel just the panic of it, but that it was Jason, that it was Brandon, and that shortness of breath was not just from the shift from beta to alpha, but from her feeling them suffocating. Until there was nothing left except Derek and Peter and the screaming instinct to run, to get her remaining pack as far away from Beacon Hills as she possibly could. But she hadn’t been prepared. 

Not prepared to deal with an uncle who was badly burnt and not healing, unresponsive. Laura had felt she’d had no choice once the police stopped asking questions, stopped wondering if maybe her or Derek had been the ones to kill their family. And hadn’t that stung. So she shoved it away inside of her, doing what she could to be the strong one, because Derek had stopped smiling, stopped looking like he even cared if he lived or died. Her baby brother, who’d always been a little shy, yet quick to laugh. The decision hadn’t been easy, but she’d taken Derek away, and for a long time there hadn’t been a home for them to call their own.

It had been awkward, because it wasn’t like they’d been close before. Three years was a gap that had set them up for the kind of relationship that was mostly her teasing him, and him being the kid brother she reluctantly spent time with because her parents forced her to. He was seventeen years old, more a man than child, though it was easy for her to forget. Derek had still been awkwardly growing into himself at fifteen, when she’d left to go to school in Sacramento two years before, and it shamed her to admit she hadn’t come home when school let out. She’d had an apartment, another life that hadn’t worked out in the end, so she’d missed the transition from boy to man. 

Then it was just them, and Laura hadn’t known the first thing about taking care of him, about comforting him when he’d cry at night, or the way he’d look embarrassed about it the next morning, because he knew she’d heard. His pain mirrored her own pain, with the only difference being she never felt like she could fully give in to it, could only cry when she was alone. It festered inside of her, taking root in nightmares that left her waking in a cold sweat, tears in her eyes, the scent of her fear everywhere. But they didn’t talk about it, though they eventually, gradually came together under the heavy weight of shared sorrows, began confiding in each other about the lives they were trying to make for themselves in an effort to forget.

Now Derek was alone, with no one to make sure he did his laundry, or turn off all the lights in the house before bed. There would be no more take out dinners in front of the television as they laughed their way through all the supernatural shows on the air that always got everything so very wrong when it came to werewolves. Just another funeral her brother would have to attend, this time alone. It had taken so much time for them to heal partially, enough for them to go about their daily lives in a way that wasn’t filled with so much pain, because they’d learned to lean on each other. But perhaps they’d always been living on borrowed time, and their surviving had been a fluke, something Death felt the need to correct. 

Six years and that dark specter had finally come knocking, and all Laura could think was how terrible it was that it had to be her uncle who’d done it. Terrible because through all that confusion that seemed to have taken residence inside him, she’d thought she’d seen accusation in his eyes. Though maybe that had been her projecting her own guilt, or own self loathing for leaving a crippled member of her pack behind, defenseless and still nursing his wounds. What sort of Alpha did that make her? And in retrospect, she’d begun to think that was why she hadn’t fought harder when he’d attacked her. Maybe because she’d felt, in some deep part of her, that she deserved to die for that abandonment. 

She hadn’t thought of Derek until it was too late, and maybe that was the real tragedy.


	2. What Broken Dreams Are Made Of

The first time Erica ever saw a ghost, at least that she could remember, had been when she was four years old. Of course, she hadn’t known the woman was dead. Hadn’t realised the gravity of the situation as her grandmother had sat down beside her, commenting on the lovely dress Erica was drawing on a sheet of white paper at her tiny table in the corner of her room. Even when she’d cheerfully told her mother about it later, she hadn’t realised, hadn’t even noticed the way her mother’s face had frozen at the mention of Nana. What she had understood was that talking about her grandmother got her in trouble, earned her more time alone in her room. But that was alright with Erica, because Nana was always there, waiting for her with a smile.

In the subsequent years, as things got worse for Erica, the seizures happening with more and more frequency, she learned to rely on the dead more than the living. Her mother didn’t like talking about it, always acted like taking Erica to her doctor appointments was a chore, and in the end, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone that by the time she was seven years old Erica was withdrawn. That she had trouble connecting with other children, because at home, she had no one to comfort her but the people no one else could see, and at school, she was teased because occasionally she’d sit in the corner and talk to herself. Seven was, after all, past the age when it was acceptable to have imaginary friends still. 

For a while, this was ok with her. Erica got used to it, but then she got older, and began to notice things like boys and how the other girls started wearing makeup, dressing less and less in clothes bearing disney princesses. And there she was, eleven years old, with plastic still covering her mattress because her night seizures sometimes made her wet the bed, still wearing her thrift store sweaters with teddy bears on them while other girls started sporting trendy jackets. It was envy that bloomed inside her, and a desire to be normal. It was the first year she’d turned away when her grandmother came to visit, the first time she refused to acknowledge the little boy who’d drowned at the pool her mother took her to. 

Eventually, they gave up in the same way she’d given up. Some nights Erica would cry because Nana never came to sit beside her while she had her seizures anymore, but she always told herself this is what she’d wanted. To be normal. To be like all the other girls who didn’t see dead people. Only, it didn’t change anything. Because she was still the girl who sometimes stuttered her sentences out, the words becoming jumbled and not making any sense before she started convulsing. Normal was a setting that didn’t exist in Erica’s world, but at least she wasn’t distracted anymore by the people who weren’t supposed to be there. 

At least she could focus in class more, without having to worry that Jeremy, the boy who’d died two houses down from the school, would whisper something that would make her laugh during one of her lessons. Except, she found herself looking for them sometimes, long after they’d stopped trying, and more than once she’d been sent to the counselor’s office because her teachers were concerned about her. Letters were sent home urging her mother to have Erica be seen by a professional, typed paragraphs full of worry that she was suffering from depression because of her epilepsy. Nothing ever changed.

It wasn’t as if she’d even stopped seeing ghosts, because of course she hadn’t. It was more that the ones she’d become familiar with, the ones she’d developed some semblance of relationships with had stopped making themselves known to her. There was the old man who walked his endless route down Main, but he’d never acknowledged Erica, not once in all the years she’d tried as a little girl. And then the crying woman in the woods, out near where the burnt out shell of the Hale house was, who’d always frightened Erica too much for her to venture too far into the trees. But not Nana, or Jeremy or little Aaron in his duck covered swim shorts, that big goofy smile on his face every time he saw her. 

So much loneliness has a way of worming inside a person, the way it did Erica, making her watch girls like Lydia Martin with that spark of jealousy. The way boys would watch Lydia, the way girls wanted to be her, the way Erica wanted to be her, the way she wanted Stiles Stilinski to look at her the way he looked at Lydia. Because he was the first boy she’d ever really noticed, with his awkward limbs that had taken him some time to grow into after puberty. And if she had to admit it, he was the only reason she sat through Lacrosse games, even though he only sat the bench. Maybe it had a little to do with the fact that sometimes she saw his mother with him, even if he wasn’t aware, and that had always struck her as important.

Because some people, when they died, they just vanished, but others held onto things they’d loved or hated or their death had just been too traumatic. For Mary Stilinski, Erica knew it was love that kept her rooted to her son. It was in the way she looked at him, in the way she smiled at him even though he couldn’t see her, full of so much pride and adoration. And wasn’t that just something that had torn Erica apart at first? That kind of love from a mother to their child, a love she doubted her mother had ever felt for her. So perhaps it was envy of Stiles that had first made her notice him, and somehow that had grown into an actual desire to have him notice her. 

Three years, and he still hadn’t, except maybe a glance in her direction as they passed one another in the halls, just a passing of his eyes over her face. Not the kind of look that meant anything. Erica thought maybe if she was prettier he might, but there wasn’t anything she could do to change her face. And makeup always seemed so awkward on her, which might have had more to do with her not knowing how to wear it than anything else. Another life, perhaps, one where she was reincarnated into someone with a face more like Lydia’s, all big smiles and bright eyes, and beautiful hair. Until then, she’d just have to do with what she had, which meant no one ever noticing her.

Which is why she’d stopped taking her medication in the first place. Thought that maybe if she didn’t have that coursing through her it would stop her face from breaking out, make it so she could fit into her pants a little easier without needing to buy a size up. Almost four weeks, without much change, except that she’d started having little seizures more often, that stop and start in her brain that was something like a car stalling. The air around her seeming to compress, head feeling light. For the most part, it wasn’t noticeable, because people rarely talked to her enough for them to notice that she might be fumbling her words, or that she might be confusing them, calling an apple a shoe. 

It was manageable, and the only real complaint she had was that she was seeing ghosts more frequently. Erica always knew when they’d get close, because there’d be a tightness in her head, just behind her right eye, a slowly building, piercing throb that would last until they went away. That hadn’t been something she’d missed, because sometimes the headache remained, faint but there. She still wasn’t acknowledging them, purposefully avoiding looking at them until they’d gone. But she noticed them more, and that would take some getting used to again. Practice always made perfect, or at least that’s what people said. It never seemed to for her. 

Maybe this year would be different.


End file.
